


hugging hedgehogs

by misura



Category: Lynes and Mathey Series - Amy Griswold & Melissa Scott
Genre: M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Past Sexual Abuse, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23295904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "I - it sounded like you were having a bad dream," Ned said, and Julian almost wanted to laugh in relief.
Relationships: Julian Lynes/Ned Mathey
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	hugging hedgehogs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



_'Kiss the rod, Lynes,'_ one of them said - it didn't even matter who, really; they were all the same, all of them, and one day, Julian would see them all dead, he promised himself, for what they'd done, to him and to Ned and to everyone else.

Of course, all the vengeful plotting in the world didn't make this moment any better, any easier to deal with. Closing his eyes only meant he wouldn't be able to see them, while they would still be able to see him, mock him, touch him. _'Kiss the rod.'_

Ned seemed preoccupied at breakfast, as if something was bothering him, but Julian told himself that he did not wish to pry. It was almost true, he reassured himself; Ned surely knew that Julian's help was his for the asking, and so if Ned did not ask, it was because Julian's help was not, in fact, needed or wanted, and Julian ought to be content with that.

Julian sighed, and Ned looked at him with the oddest of expressions and then said, "Did you know, you talk in your sleep sometimes?"

It did not seem like a particularly dangerous or personal question, though Ned's face seemed to imply he rather disagreed. "No," Julian said. He might have dreamt, he supposed. He sometimes did, though he never seemed able to remember what he had dreamt about when he woke up.

"No. I suppose not. It was a bit of a silly thing to ask, wasn't it?" Julian could tell Ned tried very hard to sound casual, teasing.

"A bit, perhaps," he allowed. _What did I say?_ he wanted to ask. _Should I apologize?_ He found it hard to imagine speaking ill of Ned, even in his sleep. A misunderstanding seemed much more likely, some comment Ned had mistaken for something else. _It's not reasonable to expect me to apologize for something I don't even remember saying,_ Julian thought.

Ned hesitated.

"If it's that serious, you should probably tell me," Julian said, trying not to sound annoyed. Ned hadn't actually come out and said anything, after all.

"I - it sounded like you were having a bad dream," Ned said, and Julian almost wanted to laugh in relief.

He shrugged, trying not to let it show that he had been just a bit worried. "I probably was. I guess it's a good thing I don't remember anything then, isn't it?"

"Yes," Ned said, but he looked dubious, as if he was trying to convince himself of something and not quite succeeding.

Julian put the incident from his mind, more or less. He had assumed (or hoped, perhaps) Ned had done the same. There was no reason not to, after all. People had bad dreams sometimes. It didn't require further analysis or conversation.

He liked what he and Ned had. He liked talking to Ned and spending a lot of time in Ned's company and not needing to wonder when he was going to see Ned again.

"No more bad dreams, I hope?" Ned said, á propos of nothing whatsoever, a few days after.

"If I talk about them in my sleep, wouldn't you know?" Julian said, a bit less graciously than he might have, he supposed.

Ned's look suggested he agreed with that assessment.

Julian considered apologizing, but the situation did not seem quite so serious yet.

"When people dream about the same thing multiple nights in a row, sometimes it means something," Ned said.

"I don't think any of my cases would warrant someone trying to curse me or the like," Julian said, after a quick mental review of his current and recently closed cases.

"That's not quite what I was thinking of."

Julian waited, but Ned did not seem inclined to be the one to break the silence again this time. "What, then?"

"Memories. Things people had rather forget happened to them." Ned sounded wary, though Julian could not think why.

"I hardly think that's likely," he said.

"How would you know, if you don't remember?" Ned countered.

 _Because when you said that it would be unreasonable to still blame Victor for what he did to you, I agreed to help you save his miserable life._ Of course, of the two of them, Ned had always been the one more inclined to forgive. Still, in the face of Ned's equanimity, Julian had felt a little uncomfortable admitting that he did not share it.

"I just do," he said - a poor answer, though he kept his tone civil this time, hoping that would be enough to convince Ned to drop the matter.

"We don't need to talk about it if you'd rather not," Ned said. "I simply wanted you to know that if you did, you could."

"Thank you?" Julian said. He _was_ grateful, if less for the offer than for Ned's willingness to leave the matter alone.

Ned smiled. "Of course. Any time."

And that really should have been that, except that it wasn't.

To give Ned credit, he didn't bring up the whole thing again. The two of them had been living together for long enough for Julian to be able to read Ned like a book, though. (Julian supposed it was possible that the reverse also held true, though of course Ned wasn't a detective and anyway, it wasn't as if Julian went around keeping secrets from him or the like, so it hardly mattered.)

Had anyone other than Ned been involved, Julian might have suspected them of diabolical genius. Ned being Ned, that idea seemed more ridiculous than realistic.

And perhaps, to talk about what had happened just one time might not be so bad. It would get Ned off his back - in the metaphorical sense, at least, and even if Julian saw no reason why talking about it should make him feel any better or inclined to forgive and forget, he could not see that it would do any harm, either. Looked at with proper rationality and logic, there really was no reason at all not to tell Ned and be done with it.

"So," Julian said, "you said you wanted to talk."

Ned blinked. "I did?" He sounded a bit plaintive.

"Well, we don't have to if you don't want to," Julian said. He tried not to sound too relieved.

Ned opened his mouth, then closed it again with a look that made Julian feel that perhaps his choice of time and place had been less well-chosen than he had hoped. "I feel I should get dressed for this."

 _I feel you shouldn't so we can continue with what we're doing._ Still, Julian reminded himself that he'd resolved on this conversation. Ned moved away, one hand reaching for his shirt, and Julian surprised himself by putting his hand on Ned's arm and saying, "Don't."

Ned went very still, not as if he were afraid of Julian (which would have been unbearable) but rather as if he were afraid _for_ Julian, which was merely silly. "All right. As you wish."

 _None of this is as I wish,_ Julian thought bitterly, less aimed at Ned than at the world in general. Ned came a bit closer, shirt forgotten, though his intentions seemed less than amorous.

Even so, it always felt nice to have Ned near, to feel Ned's skin against his own, to be allowed to explore Ned's body by touch and taste and - "Julian."

"You said we didn't have to talk about it if I didn't want to," Julian said. He could be content with just this, he thought: Ned nearby, and himself held, warm and safe and perfectly comfortable.

"Yes," Ned said. "And is that the case here?"

Julian groaned. "It's not that I don't want to. It's simply that there's nothing to talk about. You said it yourself: what happened at St Thomas's is in the past, and there's no point in dwelling on it."

"I'm reasonably certain that's not quite what I said."

"Close enough," Julian said. "And you - " He'd wanted all of them dead, true enough, but after what Victor had done to Ned -

"I chose to be practical and the better man," Ned said. "Better than Victor, that is. Not better than you. At no point did I mean to imply I would think less of you for choosing differently."

"They - it wasn't anything as bad as what Victor did to you," Julian forced himself to say. It was true, even so. What they'd done - it hadn't even hurt all that much. Less than a caning. It had been uncomfortable and humiliating, of course, and he'd felt quite low at the end of it, but he'd been able to walk out of the room and pretend nothing had happened.

Ned went still again, then seemed to come out of it and moved his hands over Julian's back.

"They - " _'Kiss the rod, Lynes,'_ and he'd never liked people using his mouth, after, but of course plenty of people didn't like that sort of thing; it was a matter of taste and preference, nothing to do with what had happened.

Ned kissed him. Julian incongruously thought that Ned shouldn't, wouldn't have kissed him if he knew what they'd used Julian's mouth for.

"They made me suck them off," he said, before he lost his nerve. "So you see, it wasn't anything as bad as you probably imagined it was, but, really, you only have yourself to blame for blowing the thing all out of proportion, I hope you can see that now."

"Yes. I see," Ned said, his voice odd.

Julian decided that he'd been right to bring it up after all. "It was kind of you to worry, of course," he added, feeling generous.

"Is that why you - " Ned started, then stopped talking. His hands resumed their movements.

"Well, I can't imagine why it should give me bad dreams, but then, dreams aren't usually supposed to make sense," Julian said.

"You don't mind it when I use my mouth," Ned said, sounding as if he wasn't actually sure of that anymore.

"Of course not. Why should I?" Julian scoffed. "That's a completely different thing."

"You simply don't like it the other way around."

"Yes," Julian said. "I'm hardly unique in that, am I?" It was absurd, the number of people who seemed to expect that he'd do for them what they'd done for him - as if it were some sort of transaction, a kind of exchange. Sure, if Julian had offered them no means of satisfaction whatsoever, that would have been poor manners, but that wasn't how it had been at all.

"Oh, I would say you are unique in a great many ways, my dear," Ned said.

"Only because you're a hopeless romantic," Julian said.

"'Romantic', I'll grant you."

Julian sighed. Part of him wanted to offer to suck Ned off, just to show that he could. Mostly, he simply wanted Ned to keep doing what he'd been doing, and to fall asleep with Ned there - _to protect me,_ he almost thought, as if even Ned would be able to defend him from some bad dreams.

"I didn't know," Ned said.

Julian shrugged. "I never told you."

"Thank you for - for telling me now," Ned said.

"Not like it was any kind of big deal," Julian said. "Besides, it was a long time ago."

Ned tightened his arms around him. It occurred to Julian, too late to do any good, of course, that if he had told Ned before, Ned might have refused to take Victor's case, and then Victor might have gotten himself hanged.

Still, such was the way the world worked. And at least he slept without dreaming that night, and he woke up with Ned still there, curled up around him, and that was still new and wonderful and enough to make him feel his time at St Thomas's hadn't been a complete waste he'd as soon have erased from his memory wholesale.


End file.
